Making of a Quagmire

David Halberstam (1934–2007) was the author of 20 books, the last 14 of which have been national best-sellers. His most recent book, The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War, is about the Chinese entry into the Korean War. He was the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for his reporting in Vietnam and was a member of the elective Society of American Historians.

• IntroductionPart I: Edging Toward Calamity: Vietnam in the Early 1960sChapter 1: Coming into a Troubled LandChapter 2: Latter-Day Mandarins: The Ngo FamilyChapter 3: A Strange Alliance: The Americans and DiemPart II: The War in the DeltaChapter 4: In the Field with the ARVNChapter 5: Finding an Elusive FoeChapter 6: Disaster: The Battle of Ap BacChapter 7: Collapse in the DeltaPart III: The Fall of the Diem RegimeChapter 8: The Buddhist Revolt BeginsChapter 9: The Raid on the PagodasChapter 10: A Slow Change in American PolicyChapter 11: The Saigon Press ControversyChapter 12: The Final Days of Ngo Dinh DiemChapter 13: What Should Be Done in Vietnam?Epilogue: Return to Vietnam

For all the legions of books published on the Vietnam War, none surpasses one of the earliest and most prescient—David Halberstam's The Making of a Quagmire. Halberstam's shrewd observations of the complexities of Vietnamese politics and the obstacles the U.S. faced early in achieving its goals deeply inform the entire book. A brilliant study that has lost none of its power despite the history that unfolded after its publication, Halberstam's book deserves to be read again and again.